"No mere mortal can resist... the e-vil of the Thriller!"
A thriller is a genre in visual media and literature which focuses on action, fast pacing, tension, and suspense. The conflicts are usually between desperate heroes and powerful antagonists who outmatch them by a large margin. Frequent location changes, time shortage, and Cliffhangers are extremely common.
Thrillers can overlap with almost any other genre. They are more defined by their plot and devices than by their content. They can be identified by the thrills the work gives to the reader or viewer.
Modern incarnations of Thrillers seem to overlap more and more often with the Horror and Science Fiction genres, leading to a misclassification of all Thrillers as being Horror, Science Fiction, or both.
Not to be confused with either the Michael Jackson album or the old Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, nor yet the 1970s British anthology series. Although the Michael Jackson music video does slightly fit in.
Subgenres
Tropes often associated with the genre
- Cliffhanger
- Mad Lib Thriller Title
- The Reveal
- Title In: Used to make sure the audience doesn't get confused by frequent location changes.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Canaan
- Death Note
- D-Live!!
- Kagewani, overlapping with horror.
- Monster, overlapping with horror.
- Ultraman
- Yami No Aegis
Film
- 10 to Midnight
- Accident
- Adam Chaplin
- All the Money in the World
- Anthropoid, overlapping with historical drama and war film.
- Apartment Zero
- Atomic Blonde, overlapping with Action.
- Berserk!
- A Bittersweet Life
- Burning Bright
- Criminal
- 22 Bullets, overlapping with Action.
- 28 Days Later, overlapping with Horror.
- The Black Dahlia
- The Bourne Series, overlapping with Action.
- The Boy Next Door
- Brake
- Buried
- The Call
- Charade
- Circle
- The Clovehitch Killer
- Cold Comes the Night, a crime thriller.
- Cold Sweat
- Coma
- The Conspiracy, overlapping with Horror.
- Cube, overlapping with Science Fiction and Horror.
- Dark Asylum
- The Dark Knight Trilogy is a Thriller mixed with superhero and neo-noir. Each of the movies qualifies in different ways:
- Batman Begins fits this genre in the second half of the movie, as the first half focused on Batman's origins.
- The Dark Knight is a crime Thriller throughout the whole movie.
- The Dark Knight Rises is a Thriller mixed with Disaster Movie elements.
- The Day the Earth Caught Fire
- Detonator (2003)
- Don't Breathe
- Duel
- Eloise
- Escape Room (2017) - overlapping with Horror.
- Even Lambs Have Teeth - overlaps with Horror.
- Everly- overlapping with action.
- Ex Machina, - overlapping with Science-Fiction.
- Fair Game - overlapping with action.
- Femme Fatale
- Freeway -overlapping with comedy.
- The Gift (2015) a psychological thriller
- Hard Candy
- Heat
- Hell Drivers
- Hidden
- Highwaymen
- Hit Team
- The Hunt for Red October
- The Hunted (1995)
- Intruders
- I Saw What You Did
- The Island (1980)
- Jacob's Ladder, overlapping with horror.
- Jack's Back, overlapping with Supernatural Thriller.
- Jack the Ripper (1976)
- Julia X, overlaps with Horror.
- Jurassic Park, overlapping with Horror and Science Fiction.
- La Colonia: Overlaps with historical drama.
- The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane
- A Lonely Place to Die
- Kindergarten Cop, overlapping with comedy.
- The Mad Magician
- Man Vs, overlapping with science fiction and horror.
- The Matrix, overlapping with Cyberpunk.
- Money Monster
- Naked Fear
- Nerve
- No Escape
- No Tears for the Dead
- Numb
- Open Grave, overlapping with Horror.
- Perfect Assassins, overlapping with Action and Mystery
- Poker Night
- The Power (1968), overlapping with Science Fiction.
- The President's Last Bang
- The Purge, overlapping with Horror and Science Fiction.
- The Quiet
- Quick
- Rear Window
- Red Hill
- Replicas
- Reservoir Dogs, overlapping with Crime And Punishment.
- Resurrection (1999), overlapping with Horror.
- Rolling Thunder, overlapping with crime, action and Exploitation Film.
- The Roommate
- Runaway Jury, overlapping with Crime and Punishment, and Law Procedural.
- Shiri
- Shooter
- Shut In, overlapping with Horror.
- The Silence of the Lambs, overlapping with Horror.
- Siren (2010), a psychological thriller overlapping with horror.
- Sisters of Death
- The Sixth Sense
- Skin Trade, overlapping with Action.
- Sleepers
- Sneakers
- The Snowman (2017), overlapping with Horror.
- Solace
- Split
- Strangers on a Train
- Suddenly
- Surveillance
- Targets
- Tesis
- Ties That Bind (2006), overlapping with Drama.
- Ties That Bind (2010), overlapping with Mystery and Crime.
- The Transporter, overlapping with Action.
- Trap For Cinderella
- Triple Threat
- Unbreakable
- The Guest , overlapping with Mystery and Action.
- Stay
- Vows of Deceit - also known as Deadly Matrimony
- Welcome Home
- Widows
- Wild Things
- The Wolf's Call , overlapping with Drama.
- You Were Never Really Here
- Youth of the Beast
Live Action TV
- Bosch
- Braquo
- 20 Minutes, overlapping with drama.
- Cleverman
- Colony, overlapping with drama and science fiction.
- Deutschland 83, overlapping with spy fiction.
- Dublin Murders
- Fauda
- Locked Up, overlapping with prison drama.
- Medici: Masters of Florence: overlapping with historical fiction.
- Scandal, overlapping with politics and drama.
- Shots Fired
- Spotless
- The Man in the High Castle
- Six
- Tyrant
Web Video
Video Games
- Gods Will Be Watching, a Point And Click thriller with some Science Fiction elements.
- Metal Gear is a series where every installment tries to replicate feel of a thriller movie. Notably, pretty much every game features a nuclear threat, Metal Gear Solid ends with a typical thriller trope where you fight the main villain with your bare hands, and both Solid 1 and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty are based "Die Hard" on an X premise, where you're dopped alone - with no weapons - into a facility overtaken by terrorists.
- Gunpoint attempts to create an interactive noir thriller, dropping the player into a near future town of West Point, which used to be a home of a thriving gun industry - but after a new gun control bill, industry has crashed and burned, and few remaining businesses became extremely ruthless to survive. Notably, the gameplay is based around outsmarting enemies and setting traps for them by hacking electric appliances, and game features mechanics that resemble thriller tropes, like ability to tackle people unarmed (even through a window, several floors down!) or hold them on gunpoint (as the title implies).
Western Animation
